Check your credit report for accuracy, avoid large credit purchases and pay off or pay down as much outstanding credit as possible if you are in the market for a mortgage.
      Lenders are tightening credit standards on residential mortgage loans and it behooves you to clean up your credit act.
      The fewer reasons you can give your lender to reject your application, the greater the likelihood you'll get the mortgage you need and the cheapest rate.
      If the economy remains soft, that could be more and more true.
      The Federal Reserve's quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices -- a survey of 60 large domestic banks and 24 foreign branches -- found, in January, that the share of banks tightening standards on residential mortgage loans inched up to 11 percent from 10 percent in the October survey.
      The numbers are relatively small, but the increases were the first two quarterly indications of noticeable tightening in more than a decade. While most lenders -- 88.9 percent -- revealed no change in their standards, there were no lenders that eased credit standards.

     Sellers, one of the best reasons to hire a REALTOR(r) to represent your home in the marketplace is for security reasons. Realtors are trained to help protect your safety while promoting your home to buyers in a wide variety of mediums from the Internet to the sign in your yard.
      Because they work closely with the public in unique ways, Realtors are considered by law enforcement officials to be in a high risk profession. Realtors are mobile, work in a variety of locations, and are often in the company of consumers whom they may not know well. To protect their own personal safety, as well as your property, Realtors have evolved a number of safety guidelines that might be helpful for you as a consumer to know.